“Shimmering prose ... a major talent.” —Kirkus Reviews

 

“Hoffman weaves small threads of wry magic into her plot ... [She] certainly knows how to captivate an audience.” —The Boston Globe

 

“Ms. Hoffman evokes the intimacy of close attachments—mother, brother, aunt, friend, neighbor, classmate—with tender humor and deceptively simple language.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch

 

“She is one of the best writers we have today—insightful, funny, intelligent, with a distinctive voice ... [Local Girls] does a lot to show that Hoffman is an established artist at her peak.” —The Cleveland Plain Dealer

 

“Outstanding ... elegantly written.” —South Bend Tribune

 

“Gretel’s got a nice way of pointing out the dark side of the so-called good life.” —The New York Times Book Review

 

“The prose is fluid and even musical at times.”

—The Washington Post Book World

 

“Lovely ... Hoffman is at her tender best ... A second reading is even sweeter.” —Deseret News

 

“Hoffman explores her characters’ sadness with disarming wit; these stories are never depressing ... She has a light touch and a poet’s knack for making diffuse elements fall into place with seeming effortlessness.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

 

“Local Girls is as comfortable and comforting as a book can be ... [Gretel is] a font of wry insights and ironic commentary on the adult world ... The heart of the book is a quiet wisdom about how and why we manage to go on in the face of loss; in the simple words of the narrator, how we ‘decide to live.”’—Marion Winik, Newsday

 

“Charming.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

 

“A graceful and lovely book ... Readers who haven’t read Alice Hoffman would be well-advised to start now.”—The Buffalo News

 

“This series of vignettes about Gretel Samuelson’s teenage years is told with wisecracking humor and poignant honesty. A book that’s sure to strike an empathetic chord with readers.”—School Library Journal